Fire Safety: Comparison of Standard Recommendations and Performance-Based Assessment - Assignment Example

Running head: DESIGN PROJECT Student name: Student number: Course title: Lecturer: Date: Comparison of standard recommendations and performance based assessment Fire safety The signs to point out the routes designated for escape in the charm house should be situated on the exits or the doorways. To facilitate safe movements of occupants in the escape routes, throughout or towards the exits to a position of safety, lies majorly on the enlightenment of the routes and to be a position to observe direction, hazards and level changes. As it can be observed from the design of the charm house, all escape routes are strategically placed to allow in enough artificial illumination. In the second level, plan bedroom 3 is supplied with a window, which is directly illuminated by the light that is let in through this window. This also applies to bedroom 2 and the opt. room that is supplied with light from two windows placed direct to them. Apart from the light from these particular windows artificial lighting also serve to facilitate the escape of the occupants via the internal escape route. Other escape doors can also be witnessed in the main level plan where the French door leads outside the house. From the plan, it is worth noting that the house is well furnished with enough lighting from the windows that are strategically placed in every room. However, in case the normal lighting fails to come on in the event of danger the charm house should also contain the emergency lighting termed as emergency escape light. This ensures that light is made available immediately, robotically and for a suitable length of time when the normal illumination fails. This is needed on total failure of the supplied power to the normal illumination in the charm, building and on localized letdown of normal illumination. The crisis escape illumination should be made available to show precisely and unmistakably the routes leading to the safety areas so that the escape routes can be effectively and safely utilized. They also have to provide lighting along these routes to permit safe progress through and towards these exits. Emergency illuminations also ensure that first aid fire combating equipments and fire alarm call points can be easily identified. The emergency escape illumination in the charm house should also have escape routes that are not defined. This often leads to open grounds in the building where the flee routes are not defined or fixed by the construction elements. The charm house should also possess routes that are defined. This includes routes such as escape stairways, escape corridors, and exits. This enables the occupants of the charm house to find their way out through the last exit from the building. Lastly, it should also have external flee routes outside the charm house. This are flee routes that lead to the outside of a building to the safety grounds. The installations of the emergency escape illumination should be installed and planned in relation to the germane recommendations in cipher of practice for emergency illumination, I.S. 3217: 1989. However, the charm house is not fit to use the evacuation lift incase of fire. This is because the loft has the tendency to become totally immobilized due fire and of people who may be locked inside it. Nonetheless, if the occupants of the charm house include people with disabilities an evacuation plan is necessary. In such circumstances installation of the lift needs to suitably located and secluded. .it should also contain safety characteristics that are geared towards facilitating evacuation in the event of fire. Because of the nature of operation of the lift where it connects the floors, it is probable that the flee routes may be discriminatory. Therefore, to curb this, stipulated provisions should be adhered. The lift should be in a position to ascend within a large volume and should not possess conventional lift well. This is because it places them at risk if they go through a reservoir of smoke. In this instances caution is required to uphold the integrity of the reservoir of smoke, and to safeguard the lift occupants. The lift should be either located within enclosures of a secluded staircase or be enclosed by a fire resistant construction if they are located as to disc discriminate the flee routes. A lift properly linking the various compartments in the charm house should form a secluded shaft. It is also important that the lift be accessed through a secluded upper foyer in basement, or in the storey that holds higher risk of fire and in a case where it brings you via the corridors along the sleeping room. An illustration of high fire risk in the c harm house is lounges, garage, stores, and the kitchen. However, the lift should not be abandoned to supply the basement storey. This is because the charm house has only one escape staircase, which ends at the ground floor. The lift machine points should be located over the lift well whenever probable. This is because if it is located in a secluded staircase and the building has only one escape route it makes it hard to be easily accessed. Thus, it should be placed outside the staircase for it to be located above the lift well. Feature lifts and wall climber lifts ascend the large volumes. They do not have conventional well hence subjecting them at risk of violating the integrity of the reservoir smoke since they do not have the conventional well. They also fail safeguard the lift occupants. It also important that the charm house place the electrical installation encompassing the sockets, wiring, switches, circuit breakers, distribution boards, and fuse boards in accessible locations to facilitate the running of the evacuation lift machines, emergency illumination, fire alarms and automated doors. However, this should be done in relation to the recommendations of electrical installations. The charm house should possess fire detecting and alarm system. This should comply with provisions provided. More over alarms should be provided in cases where we have mixed occupancy. The system plan should includes measures to curb the risk of counterfeit alarms or wrong use and offer ways of managing it so that a predestined response meant to evacuate the building can be carried out (Timin, 2004). In comparison with standard recommendation, performance based design is based on the fire engineering and prescriptive approaches. The prescriptive approach is one in which the architects or designers adhere to the guiding principles lad down in the ciphers of practice, circular letters and the practice notes for the certified persons. The flee routes are planned basing on the ciphers of practice. The ciphers of practice, three in number, are presented by the Department of Building and one cipher of practice is presented by the Department of Fire Service have to be adhered to in compliance with escape route design (Self, 2002). Stipulated figures are spell out to ascertain the occupants density of the Charm house, number of stairways and its width, distance to travel, and values of discharge. As stipulated in this cipher of practice, evacuation period for individual storey should be a time limit of 2.5 minutes. This is mostly for non-sprinklered buildings. Whereas in the FRC cipher [3], the regulations for safeguarding of the escape route and buildings applying the non-combustible materials, which have a particular period of, fire resistance for varied elements of construction and resisting fire action are described. The designs that adhere to these ciphers of practice are presumed to offer enough protection to the building, and the occupants in the event of eruption of fire (Chow, Fong, Pang, & Lau, 2006). Basing on the prescriptive approach, engineers, or designers are expected to design the flee route in accordance to the requirements stipulated in the cipher of practice without querying the real performance of the flee routes and how this interacts with the features of the building and the occupants. However, for the Charm house flee route is not designed by adhering to the stipulated prescriptions in the cipher of practice. Fire Engineering Approach has to be adapted to plan the flee route. Timeline approach is a regular practice in estimating the time of evacuation of occupants of the building. Approach of this kind usually makes the fire engineers to have a study of the possible fire situations by having a review of the features, occupancy characteristics and the functions of the building. The adherence to the design of installation of active fire service will also be reviewed against the up to date cipher of practice. They will then come up with the population design and the planned means of escape (Government of Ireland, 2006). After estimation of REST, the RSET and ASET difference will be applied as one of the approval criterion of the fire safety plan. The calculation results will then be presented to Department of Building and other relevant authorities for debate and approval. However, basing on this formulae evacuation process will be dealt a great blow exposing the occupants to vulnerability. It is important to note that the behavior of the occupants is one of the elements that affect time of evacuation (Chow W. , 2003). It is therefore important to discern the occupant’s behavior in applying the engineering approach to establish and include the calculations of egress time. Bibliography Chow, W. (2003). Fire safety in green or sustainable buildings: Application of the fire engineering approach in Hong Kong. Architectural Science Review , 46 (3), 297-303. Chow, W. K., Fong, N. K., Pang, E. C., & Lau, F. (2006). Case study for performance-based design in Hong Kong. Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods (p. 43). Tokyo: Tire Publishers. Government of Ireland. (2006). Building regulations. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from Environemntal regulations: http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1640,en.pdf Self, P. (2002). Planning the urban region: A comparative study of policies and organisations. London: Taylor & Francis. Timin, J. (2004). Rules for automatic sprinkler installations. New York: Cengage Learning. Read More